Tuesday – Easter Week One – Apr 22

Love

“Charity” Detail from a window by Burne Jones in Buscot parish church. Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P.; flickr

 

Meditation

Tuesday of the First Week of Easter provides the next step. Lent offered a time of cleansing, weeding out the yuck in our lives and preparing the heart for the Lord. The season of Easter is about the transforming grace of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to save us from our sins.

The Old Testament lesson in Exodus is a Song of Moses. He had the most intimate communication with God. Unlike the rest of the Israelites, who heard about God via Moses and the priests, Moses had an extraordinary connection with God. He understood who God was. He sang his gratefulness in the song.

Easter is about recognizing who God is—his amazing love, omnipotent hand that waved over the sea and swallowed up the enemies, his steadfast promise-keeping, and above all other gods. The latter suggests that there are other gods—Lucifer proclaimed himself equal to God, so in a sense he became seen as a god. Other gods in oral traditions may have been more real than we give credit. The mythologies may have arisen out of truth. The key word, though, is ‘lesser.’ Lesser gods. No god is greater than God.

The Song of Moses celebrates the holiness and infinite greatness of God, that brings terror to the enemies, such as Edom.

The New Testament lesson in the Epistle to the Colossians brings the message close to home. To us. Now that we know that God is great, good and to be feared, know also that God chose us. We are chosen to be in the Family of God. What’s in a name? Yes, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but we realize that names reflect attitudes and life styles and choices. A family name carries the past on its shoulders and the torch to venture into the future. Windsor? –conveys royalty, style, grace and majesty. Kennedy—politics, wealth, influence, democratic. Bush—presidents, dynasty, oil, politics, republican.

Remember when the questions was put to Christ, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” The reputation of that northern village was not what they expected from a ‘King’ or future ruler.